The Vatican Information Service is a news service, founded in the Holy See Press Office, that provides information about the Magisterium and the pastoral activities of the Holy Father and the Roman Curia...[+]

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Wednesday, November 25, 2015

Vatican City, 25 November 2015 (VIS) –
This morning the Holy Father departed for Kenya, Uganda and the
Central African Republic, on the eleventh apostolic trip of his
papacy.

At 7.15 a.m., before leaving for Rome's
Fiumicino airport, he received in the Domus Sanctae Marthae eleven
women and six children from a Refuge House for victims of domestic
violence and trafficking for the purposes of prostitution, according
to the Apostolic Almoner. The women were Italian, Nigerian, Romanian
and Ukrainian, and are housed in a structure managed by a religious
congregation in a village in the Lazio region.

Following the audience, the Pope
travelled by car to Fiumicino where he departed for Nairobi, the
capital of Kenya, where he is expected to arrive shortly after 3 p.m.
(Rome), 5 p.m. local time. He will be received by the president of
the Republic, Uhuru Kenyatta, and by the cardinal archbishop of
Nairobi John Njue, along with the president of the Episcopal
Conference Bishop Philip A. Anyolo and other representatives of the
episcopate.

He will then transfer to the State
House of Nairobi, where the welcome ceremony and courtesy visit to
President Uhuru Kenyatta will take place. Subsequently, in the garden
of the State House, he will meet with the authorities and the
diplomatic corps, along with other figures from the political,
economic and cultural spheres, after which he will pronounce his
first discourse on African soil.

Vatican City, 25 November 2015 (VIS) –
In a letter published today, written in Latin and dated 9 November,
the Holy Father appoints Cardinal Nicolas de Jesus Lopez Rodriguez,
archbishop of Santo Domingo, as his special envoy to the celebration
of the fifth centenary of Cumana, Venezuela, the birthplace of the
evangelisation of South America, to be held on 27 November.

- accepted the resignation from the
pastoral care of the diocese of Nazare, Brazil, presented by Bishop
Severino Vatista de Franca, O.F.M. Cap., in accordance with canon 401
para. 2 of the Code of Canon Law.

- accepted the resignation from the
pastoral care of the diocese of Campanha, Brazil, presented by Bishop
Diamantino Prata de Carvalho, O.F.M., upon reaching the age limit. He
is succeeded by Bishop Pedro Cunha Cruz, coadjutor of the same
diocese.

- appointed Msgr. Roberto Filippini as
bishop of Pescia (area 224, population 121,637, Catholics 112,920,
priests 67, deacons 8, religious 80), Italy. The bishop-elect was
born in 1948 in Vinci, Italy, and was ordained a priest in 1973. He
holds a licentiate in scripture, and has served as parish priest,
diocesan vicar, head of the inter-diocesan school of theology in
Camaiore, Lucca, and rector of the “Santa Caterina”
archiepiscopal seminary in Pisa. He is currently spiritual father of
the same “Santa Caterina” seminary and chaplain of the prison of
Pisa.